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Colin Campbell (murderer)
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Colin Campbell (murderer)
Colin Frederick Campbell (born 16 September 1947) is a British double murderer who in the early 1980s abducted two separate and unrelated women in West London and killed them in sexually motivated attacks. In 2013, 32 years after the event, Campbell was convicted of the high-profile unsolved murder of 17-year-old Claire Woolterton after a DNA match was found to him. He was already in prison for the 1984 killing of Deirdre Sainsbury, but had had his murder conviction in this case downgraded to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility in 1999 after he claimed that he had only killed her due to having an epileptic fit.
In an open prison and about to be released in the early 2010s, Campbell was finally apprehended for Woolterton's murder, which had led to one of the UK's biggest manhunts at the time and a large amount of press coverage due to it being a murder of a minor. The epilepsy experts who had helped Campbell win his appeal in the Sainsbury case accepted that epilepsy could not explain two violent and sexually motivated murders, and in sentencing the judge said that it had been wrong to downgrade his conviction to manslaughter in 1999. Detectives said that had he not been caught, Campbell would have potentially become a serial killer, a term usually used to describe a repeat killer who has killed at least three victims. Campbell is imprisoned at HM Prison Woodhill.
The conviction of Campbell for Woolterton's murder was noted in the media for the decades-long gap between the murder and the killer being identified, and was also celebrated for being another successful case of DNA finally solving an infamous cold case in the UK following the recent solving of the murder of Yolande Waddington in 1966 using DNA.
In December 1984, Campbell abducted 29-year-old Deirdre Sainsbury in his car as she hitchhiked along the South Circular Road in Roehampton in west London, before killing her and dumping her body on Denham golf course. Her body had been mutilated and she was found naked. A witness had seen Sainsbury get into Campbell's car and remembered the registration number, and the car was found to belong to Campbell. Police officers went to his home and found the murdered woman's missing clothing inside. After he was arrested he confessed to killing her after he had made sexual advances to her, but claimed he had killed her because he had suffered an epileptic fit. He claimed he had only mutilated her to make it look like a maniac had done it. However, at trial the jury did not believe his claims that an epileptic fit could explain such a brutal and sexually motivated murder, and found him guilty of murder and not manslaughter.
In 1996 Campbell won an appeal against his conviction for the murder of Sainsbury, with his defence team having employed experts who claimed that Campbell could have murdered her due to an epileptic fit from being on the wrong medication. At a retrial in 1999, Campbell pled guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and this plea was accepted by the prosecution. The judge said that while the conclusion was that he had killed with diminished responsibility, Campbell still constituted a danger to the public and ordered him to return to prison, with release only being possible through the parole process. Having already served 13 years he was given a minimum tariff of 1 day. However, subsequent parole board hearings found that he was too dangerous to be released.
In 2013, it materialised that Campbell had already murdered by the time he killed Sainsbury, when he was convicted of the 1981 murder of teenager Claire Woolterton, revealing he was a double killer and indicating that epilepsy was not the reason why he had murdered Sainsbury. By this time, Campbell had been downgraded to a Category D prison while serving his sentence for Sainsbury's killing, and was being openly allowed out into the public on licence for five days every month in preparation for a possible release.
Woolterton was 17 years old and was described as a "normal, happy girl". On the evening of Thursday 27 August 1981, she had left her work at an amusement arcade in west London to walk home, but never arrived. At 6:00 the next morning, a member of the public walking along Barry Avenue in Windsor heading towards the nearby train station spotted what he thought was a mannequin on the footpath, which turned out to be the body of Woolterton. The body was partially naked with multiple knife wounds and a cut to the throat. She had been sexually assaulted. Later in the day Woolterton's parents realised that their daughter had not returned home the previous night, and saw a news broadcast reporting that a girl's body had been found in Windsor. They contacted their local police force and discovered that the victim was their daughter.
Police opened a murder investigation immediately at the time, saying that they believed that she had been murdered elsewhere and dumped at the location by the murderer. This was indicated by the fact that the last known sighting of her was far away walking down the Uxbridge Road in Acton, yet she was found dead in Windsor. Two witnesses came forward to say they had seen a girl being bundled into a car that night on the Uxbridge Road, and the police theory was that, since she had been found on one side of a stone wall right next to the River Thames, her killer may have parked their car there in the darkness and dumped her body over the wall, thinking it would go into the river.
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Colin Campbell (murderer)
Colin Frederick Campbell (born 16 September 1947) is a British double murderer who in the early 1980s abducted two separate and unrelated women in West London and killed them in sexually motivated attacks. In 2013, 32 years after the event, Campbell was convicted of the high-profile unsolved murder of 17-year-old Claire Woolterton after a DNA match was found to him. He was already in prison for the 1984 killing of Deirdre Sainsbury, but had had his murder conviction in this case downgraded to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility in 1999 after he claimed that he had only killed her due to having an epileptic fit.
In an open prison and about to be released in the early 2010s, Campbell was finally apprehended for Woolterton's murder, which had led to one of the UK's biggest manhunts at the time and a large amount of press coverage due to it being a murder of a minor. The epilepsy experts who had helped Campbell win his appeal in the Sainsbury case accepted that epilepsy could not explain two violent and sexually motivated murders, and in sentencing the judge said that it had been wrong to downgrade his conviction to manslaughter in 1999. Detectives said that had he not been caught, Campbell would have potentially become a serial killer, a term usually used to describe a repeat killer who has killed at least three victims. Campbell is imprisoned at HM Prison Woodhill.
The conviction of Campbell for Woolterton's murder was noted in the media for the decades-long gap between the murder and the killer being identified, and was also celebrated for being another successful case of DNA finally solving an infamous cold case in the UK following the recent solving of the murder of Yolande Waddington in 1966 using DNA.
In December 1984, Campbell abducted 29-year-old Deirdre Sainsbury in his car as she hitchhiked along the South Circular Road in Roehampton in west London, before killing her and dumping her body on Denham golf course. Her body had been mutilated and she was found naked. A witness had seen Sainsbury get into Campbell's car and remembered the registration number, and the car was found to belong to Campbell. Police officers went to his home and found the murdered woman's missing clothing inside. After he was arrested he confessed to killing her after he had made sexual advances to her, but claimed he had killed her because he had suffered an epileptic fit. He claimed he had only mutilated her to make it look like a maniac had done it. However, at trial the jury did not believe his claims that an epileptic fit could explain such a brutal and sexually motivated murder, and found him guilty of murder and not manslaughter.
In 1996 Campbell won an appeal against his conviction for the murder of Sainsbury, with his defence team having employed experts who claimed that Campbell could have murdered her due to an epileptic fit from being on the wrong medication. At a retrial in 1999, Campbell pled guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and this plea was accepted by the prosecution. The judge said that while the conclusion was that he had killed with diminished responsibility, Campbell still constituted a danger to the public and ordered him to return to prison, with release only being possible through the parole process. Having already served 13 years he was given a minimum tariff of 1 day. However, subsequent parole board hearings found that he was too dangerous to be released.
In 2013, it materialised that Campbell had already murdered by the time he killed Sainsbury, when he was convicted of the 1981 murder of teenager Claire Woolterton, revealing he was a double killer and indicating that epilepsy was not the reason why he had murdered Sainsbury. By this time, Campbell had been downgraded to a Category D prison while serving his sentence for Sainsbury's killing, and was being openly allowed out into the public on licence for five days every month in preparation for a possible release.
Woolterton was 17 years old and was described as a "normal, happy girl". On the evening of Thursday 27 August 1981, she had left her work at an amusement arcade in west London to walk home, but never arrived. At 6:00 the next morning, a member of the public walking along Barry Avenue in Windsor heading towards the nearby train station spotted what he thought was a mannequin on the footpath, which turned out to be the body of Woolterton. The body was partially naked with multiple knife wounds and a cut to the throat. She had been sexually assaulted. Later in the day Woolterton's parents realised that their daughter had not returned home the previous night, and saw a news broadcast reporting that a girl's body had been found in Windsor. They contacted their local police force and discovered that the victim was their daughter.
Police opened a murder investigation immediately at the time, saying that they believed that she had been murdered elsewhere and dumped at the location by the murderer. This was indicated by the fact that the last known sighting of her was far away walking down the Uxbridge Road in Acton, yet she was found dead in Windsor. Two witnesses came forward to say they had seen a girl being bundled into a car that night on the Uxbridge Road, and the police theory was that, since she had been found on one side of a stone wall right next to the River Thames, her killer may have parked their car there in the darkness and dumped her body over the wall, thinking it would go into the river.